station-master/docs/rules/card-reference.md

# Station Master — Card Reference

> **⚠ SUPERSEDED.** This described an invented 52-card placeholder. The real catalogue arrived on
> 2026-07-30 in `docs/Deck cards2.xlsx`, `Trains3.pdf` and `Mainline Cards.pdf`, and is transcribed
> in `src/engine/content.ts`. See [`implications.md`](implications.md) for the full comparison.
>
> Kept for the reasoning it records — the economy analysis in §7 was how we knew what questions to
> ask the design. **Do not use its numbers.**

The per-card catalogue: what is printed on every card. This is the specification the rules engine
instantiates from and that any print-and-play layout renders. It says *what each card says*, not how
it looks.

Derived from [`rules-v0.2.md`](rules-v0.2.md) §12 and the Gap 10 decisions in
[`open-questions.md`](open-questions.md#gap-10--card-face-specifications).

*All values provisional — calibration targets to retune after play.*

---

## 1. The Home Office deck — 52 cards

| Category | Cards | §12.1 |
| --- | ---: | --- |
| [Timetabled Trains](#3-train-cards) | 12 | one each, 1–12 |
| [Extra Trains](#3-train-cards) | 4 | X9–X12 |
| [Office upgrades](#4-office-cards) | 9 | Depot ×4, Station ×3, Terminal ×2 |
| [Freight Facilities](#2-freight-facility-cards) | 10 | 5 types × 2 |
| [Modifier Facilities](#5-modifier-cards) | 5 | one each |
| [Plain track](#6-track-cards) | 12 | turnout ×6, straight ×3, run-around ×3 |
| **Total** | **52** | |

---

## 2. Freight Facility cards

Ten cards, **five types in identical pairs**. Every freight facility card carries: a track with the
Operational Rail wheel icon, an industry track of the stated length, Laborer icons, the
`MEN | AT | WORK` three-box turn track, and its green Outbound and/or red Inbound boxes.

| Facility | Car type | Direction | Laborers | Outbound | Inbound | Industry track | Copies |
| --- | --- | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| Mine Tipple | Hopper | Outbound only | 3 | 3 | — | 4 | 2 |
| Produce Shed | Reefer | Outbound only | 2 | 2 | — | 3 | 2 |
| Grocer's Warehouse | Boxcar or reefer | Inbound only | 1 | — | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Oil Refinery | Tank car | Outbound only | 1 | 1 | — | 4 | 3 |
| Power Plant | Hopper or tank car | Inbound only | 3 | — | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Freight House | Boxcar | Both | 1 | 1 | 1 | — | 6 |

Directions follow the commodity: coal originates at a Mine Tipple and is consumed at a Power Plant;
produce ships out; a warehouse receives. This gives §9 all three of its cases — outbound-only,
inbound-only, and both — with the **Freight House the one card that does both**.

**"Freight House" IS a card** (corrected v0.5.0) — a sixth industry, dealt 6 copies, one Laborer and
one slot each direction. An earlier pass here read §9.3/Appendix A's "Passenger Facilities and
Freight Houses permit cars to move each direction" as meaning "Freight House" was only ever a
*collective term* for the Grocer's Warehouse and the Oil Refinery, never a card of its own — that
reading was wrong; the engine deals it as a real sixth industry (`content.ts`'s `freightHouse`
profile) and this table follows the engine.

**The Grocer's Warehouse and the Oil Refinery are ONE-WAY** (corrected v0.4.9e). The Direction column
read "Both" for both of them, and that was the *other half* of the same mistaken reading: if "Freight
House" named those two, §9.3 had to be describing them, so they had to be two-way. Once the Freight
House is its own card the argument evaporates, and playtesting settled it — "Grocer's Warehouse
should be receive only, does not ship anything out"; "Refinery: only ships out tanks, does not
receive anything" (Jesse). `StationMaster-Home-Deck-v0.4.5.md` prints both that way, and the modifier
set agrees: all three Refinery modifiers (Pipelines, Oil Depot, Viscosity Breakers) grant **+1
outbound**, which would be an odd card set for a facility that receives half the time.
<!-- TODO v0.5.0: Mine Tipple, Produce Shed and Power Plant above (3/3/4, 2/2/3, 3/3/4) were NOT
     re-verified against the engine in this pass — only Grocer's Warehouse, Oil Refinery and Freight
     House were. `mineTipple` and `powerPlant` in `content.ts` are also base 1/1/1, same as the three
     corrected here, so these three rows and the "Throughput" reasoning below (built on the OLD
     2–3-Laborer numbers) may be stale too. Flagged in TODO.md rather than silently rewritten — this
     needs the same kind of decision Jesse made for Grocer's/Refinery/Freight House, not an assumption
     that the same correction applies. -->

### Throughput — why these Laborer counts

A complete freight load takes **four Laborer-actions** (§9.3): Green → MEN → AT → WORK → onto the
car. Laborers are usable once each per Stage.

**`MEN | AT | WORK` is a pipeline, not a queue.** §9.1 allows one Load on each of its three boxes, so
up to three loads are in flight at once and each Laborer advances one of them per Stage. This is the
key to reading the numbers: **Laborer count is throughput, not latency.**

```
single load, 2 Laborers → completes in 2 Stages
single load, 3 Laborers → completes in 2 Stages   (no faster!)

pipeline full, 3 Laborers → one load completes EVERY Stage
```

The extra Laborer buys nothing on one load and triples output on a full pipeline.

**And the pipeline can only be fed one load per Stage**, because stocking the green box costs a whole
Local Operations action (§6.3). So a 3-Laborer facility is exactly balanced against the feed rate —
it completes loads as fast as a player can possibly supply them. The 2-Laborer facilities are the
deliberately slower industries, unable to quite keep up with a dedicated player.

That is why Laborer counts track Outbound capacity: Mine Tipple 3/3, Power Plant 3/3, Produce Shed
2/2, Grocer's Warehouse 2/2. The numbers are derived from the action budget, not chosen freely.

<!-- The paragraph that stood here explained the Oil Refinery's third Laborer as the price of serving
     two flows through one pipeline. It serves one flow (v0.4.9e), so the explanation is gone with the
     premise; whether the Laborer count is still right is part of the same unverified block flagged
     above and in TODO.md. -->

Even so, Laborers are rarely what limits a player — spotting the empty car and hauling the loaded one
away both cost switching actions from the same budget. See §7.

---

## 3. Train cards

Sixteen cards. Each carries its number, a direction from the card image, the consist specification,
and the required order: **engine at the front, revenue cars, caboose last where required**.

Odd numbers run westbound, even eastbound. Pairs are sister trains under the optional rule (Appendix
B). Seniority runs passenger-first — low numbers are the varnish, high numbers the drags and locals.

| Trains | Class | Consist | Direction |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 / 2 | Limited | 4 coaches, no caboose | W / E |
| 3 / 4 | Mail-Express | 3 coaches, no caboose | W / E |
| 5 / 6 | Manifest Freight | 3 boxcars or reefers + caboose | W / E |
| 7 / 8 | Coal Drag | 3 hoppers + caboose | W / E |
| 9 / 10 | Oil Train | 3 tank cars + caboose | W / E |
| 11 / 12 | Way Freight | 3 cars of any type + caboose | W / E |
| X9, X10, X11, X12 | Extra | Any 3 cars + caboose, player's choice | Head-on — player chooses |

A Crew Tray holds at most **four** Rolling Stock and a caboose counts toward that four (§A.4), which
is why no caboose train carries more than three revenue cars.

Only trains 1–4 carry coaches, so passenger work at any Office depends on those four trains' visits.

---

## 4. Office cards

Nine upgrade cards in the deck (Depot ×4, Station ×3, Terminal ×2 — the pyramid Gap 3b requires).
Whistle Posts are a fixed supply outside the deck (§12.2).

| Office | Control Point | Passenger Facility | A/D tracks | Porters | Green slots | Red slots | In deck |
| --- | :---: | :---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| Whistle Post | no | no | 1 | — | — | — | supply |
| Depot | yes | yes | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Station | yes | yes | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Terminal | yes | yes | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 |

**Slot capacity deliberately exceeds Porter count.** Only trains 1–4 carry coaches, so an Office needs
somewhere to bank boarding passengers between visits and room to absorb a whole trainload of
arrivals. Slot counts mirror the A/D track progression.

**All four tiers carry identical track geometry** (§11.3): a through track plus a plain junction stub
above and below. Upgrades are drop-in and must never disturb a connection.

---

## 5. Modifier cards

Five cards, one each. A Modifier is **not track**. It is placed adjacent to a Facility, on any of the
nine nearby spots — **diagonals included** — and if adjacent to two Facilities its effect may be used
on only one per Stage (§9).

Two placement rules follow from it not being track. It is **not bounded by the Limits**: a host
standing at the edge of the district keeps all nine of its spots, or the card would be unplayable
exactly where the district ends. And it may **never stand in the Running Track's row**, which inside
the Limits is always full anyway — beyond the sign that row is the ground the main grows onto, and a
Modifier parked there would block the Limits sign from moving outward (§2.1).

| Card | Effect | Applies to |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Team Track | +1 car on the industry track | Freight |
| Loading Dock | +1 green Outbound capacity | Freight |
| Storage Shed | +1 red Inbound capacity | Freight |
| Extra Platform | +1 green **and** +1 red slot | Passenger |
| Section Gang | +1 Laborer **or** +1 Porter | Either |

Capacity modifiers matter more than they sound: banking room, not worker count, is what limits
output. Section Gang is the only way to speed a facility up, and is deliberately the sole
worker-adding card.

---

## 6. Track cards

Twelve plain track cards. Every one carries the Operational Rail wheel icon **except turnouts**, which
a train may pass through but not stop on (§A.1).

| Geometry | Count | Notes |
| --- | ---: | --- |
| Turnout | 6 | Enter from A → B or C; enter from B or C → A only. Not Operational Rail. |
| Straight | 3 | Operational Rail |
| Run-around | 3 | Operational Rail. Required for the facing-point move of §A.5. |

Turnout-heavy because turnouts are how Secondary Track branches onward once the Office card's own
junction stubs are built out (§11.3).

---

## 7. Economy summary

**Local Operations actions are the main currency.** One per Stage, twelve per Day, and each is
exclusive — switch, *or* draw, *or* work the Freight Agent (§6).

| Revenue source | Local Ops cost |
| --- | --- |
| Freight load **out** | 1 to stock the green box, plus amortized switching |
| Freight **unload** | **none up front** — 1 later, only once the red box fills |
| Passenger boarding | 1 to stock a loaded coach |
| Passenger de-training | **none up front** — 1 later to clear the slot |

> **⚠ Corrected against simulation.** An earlier version of this section claimed every Revenue point
> costs about one action, giving a ceiling of 12/Day. **That is wrong**, and the error is
> instructive: the two *inbound* operations need no Local Ops action at all at the moment they
> score. A loaded car arrives on a train, per-Stage Laborers walk it off, and the point is earned
> using only free per-Stage resources. The action is spent later, and only when a box actually
> fills.
>
> That earlier correction was itself measured against a **scoring bug** — unloads were paying a full
> Revenue point after one Laborer action instead of four. With the pipeline corrected, simulation
> gives **~0.9 Revenue/player/Day and a 0% win rate** against these targets.
>
> **Treat the 5–6/Day figure as unfounded.** It was derived from the mistaken model above and has not
> been re-derived. The measured cost of one freight point is four Laborer actions plus a stocking
> action plus the switching to spot a car. See `open-questions.md` Gap 12.

### The development ramp

Players open with a Whistle Post — not a Passenger Facility — and no freight facilities at all. The
timetable also starts empty, so no trains run until someone draws and plays a train card.

```
Day 1    ~0    no facilities, no trains yet
Day 2    ~2    first facility placed, first train running
Day 3    ~5    developed
Day 4+   ~6    steady state

cumulative:   3 Days ≈ 7     5 Days ≈ 19     10 Days ≈ 49
```

The §3 victory targets (10 / 20 / 45) are set just under these cumulative figures, so a game is
winnable by a player running well and missed by one who is not. The Competitive collective floor of
`3 × players × Days` is about half of expected output and is comfortably met by a functioning
Division.

---

## 8. Fixed supplies (outside the deck)

| Component | Count |
| --- | --- |
| Mainline cards (tarot, 2 regions each) | N + 1 for N players |
| Division Point cards | 2 (East, West) |
| Whistle Post cards | N + spares |
| Limits cards | 2N + spares |
| Crew Trays and engines | player count + 3 |
| Number Boards | 12, numbered 1–12 |
| Red Flag cards | 1 per player *(optional rule only; removed from game when played)* |
| Fedora | 1 |
| Pocket Watch | 1 |
| D12 | 1 |

### Rolling Stock — 62 pieces

| Type | Loaded | Empty |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Coaches (blue) | 8 | 8 |
| Boxcars (brown) | 6 | 6 |
| Hoppers (brown) | 6 | 6 |
| Reefers (brown) | 4 | 4 |
| Tank cars (brown) | 4 | 4 |
| Cabooses (red) | 6 | — |
| **Total** | | **62** |

**Supply check against facility demand.** Worst case is every copy of every facility in play at once
with all boxes full:

| Car | Facility demand | Supply | Headroom |
| --- | ---: | ---: | --- |
| Hopper | Mine Tipple 3×2 + Power Plant 3×2 = 12 | 12 | exactly met |
| Tank | Oil Refinery 2×2 = 4 | 8 | 4 spare (was "exactly met" while the Refinery was two-way) |
| Boxcar | Grocer's 2×2 = 4 | 12 | 8 spare (same correction) |
| Reefer | Produce Shed 2×2 = 4 | 8 | 4 spare |
| Coach | Terminal 4+4, per Office | 16 | scales with Office count |

Hoppers are exactly met in the theoretical worst case, which cannot occur in practice —
only 10 freight facility cards exist across a 52-card deck shared by all players, and the §2.2
Classification Yard recycle returns stock to the Division Yard whenever it empties. Both are worth
watching in playtesting.